City Selects Two Sites for New Portland Loos

Former City Commissioner Randy Leonard and his patented Portland Loo.

Visitors to the North Park Blocks and South Park Blocks in downtown Portland will soon have a new place to relieve themselves. City officials have selected those sites for two new Portland loos.

Commissioner Randy Leonard, who heads the  Water Bureau, says the sites were chosen after consulting with the Downtown Neighborhood Association. But he acknowledges controversy could still erupt after other neighbors learn of the plan—as happened last year when the city put a loo in the Pearl District.

"It's a process," Leonard says, "and it can be contentious."

The loo in the North Park Blocks is slated to go on Northwest Davis Street. The one in the South Park Blocks is planned for the corner of Southwest Columbia Street, next to the Christian Science Church.

Leonard's staff says that church experiences significant problems cleaning up waste from the homeless who sleep there.

WWeek 2015

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